Are you looking for new ways
to save your business money? Would you love to be able to cut development,
marketing and production cost. Would this make you more competitive? Today’s
economy is forcing American business to change the way it gets things done.

Like it or not, economic pressures
have forced major changes in the way Americans do business.Whether big business or small, outsourcing
and freelancing are the name of the game today.So much so that a number of enterprising entrepreneurs have devised
online portals that specifically, cater to this stock in trade.While some people lament a lack of quality
control or even a failure to communicate (due to language differences) with
these far flung resources, the fact is that these services are in ever greater
demand as business owners strive to tighten their belts in current economic
conditions.So if you have been thinking
about giving online outsourcing a go, below is a list of some of the more
prominent resources.

Have a need?Find a “gig on Fiverr.com.".
For those new to the site, fiverr.com allows freelancers to post tasks for hire,
(called gigs) that if purchased by an individual will be accomplished for just
five dollars.Recent gigs have included
such things as royalty free music creation, life coaching sessions,
copywriting, proofreading, video testimonials, flyer distribution, web starter
kits and more.The site even offers a
dozen categories that make finding the right gig for you a snap.Just don’t expect Hollywood special effects
in a video that costs five bucks.Still
some of the work turned out by gigsters can help you build your business for
pennies on the dollar.The best way to
understand the ins and outs of Fiverr is to go to Youtube and watch the many
helpful tutorial videos.They costs you
nothing and are designed to make sure you get your fiver’s worth.

Needless to say, with the
success of Fiverr, other sites have popped up to fill the micro job
vacuum.Like fiverr.com, these sites promote
offers from freelancers looking to accomplish simple online tasks for a small
fee.However, unlike Fiverr, these sites
allow their members to post gigs that range from $5 to as much as $50.Sporting such monikers as tenbux.com,
gigbucks.com, taskarmy.com and fittytown.com, the pricing structure is agreeable,
as is the army of freelancers ready, willing and able to get the job done
quickly and cheaply.There’s even a site
called fourerr.com that posts tasks for hire for only $4 a pop. You’ve got to love that competitive spirit.

As they say, you only get
what you pay for.While sites like
Fiverr can be of use some of the time, when you want to shop a serious project
around, there are other online resources that offer to help.Two such sites are elance.com and odesk.com. Known as peer-to-peer job sites, the way they
work is by helping business owners to hook up with talent needed to take on
more complex projects.While eLance
started off as a site touting programming and other technical skills, they have
since broadened their offerings to include everything from accounting to
architecture, marketing and legal services. Odesk offers many skill sets as
well, including technical, writing, translation, sales, marketing and customer
service.Both function as a kind of
online temp agency, allowing employers to contract with one or several dozen
providers at a time.Unlike hiring
“employees,” these resources allow businesses to work with talented and
experienced professionals on a per-project basis.When the job is complete, you can cut the
cord and move on without having to deal with firer’s remorse or unemployment
benefits.

According toElancedata, the number of professionals using their hub to find
freelance/remote work opportunities increased 52% over the past year, with
hiring by businesses using Elance increasing 60%. Businesses, by the way,
report hiring freelancers is faster - taking about 3 days compared to the 20+
days it takes to hire a full-time employee.

The Dilemma

The real dilemma
for many entrepreneurs is the fact that there are now so many different ways to
outsource a project that it’s a case of trying to tell the players without a
scorecard.To help you make sense of the
many nuances involved in the outsourcing process several resources devoted to
the genre are available, including the International Associaton of Outsourcing
Professionals, Outsource Magazine, Professional Outsourcing Magazine, HRO
Today, Medical Project Outsourcing, and Sourcing Speak just to name a few.

Whether you are
looking to outsource tasks, projects or entire departments, either domestically
or internationally, there are organizations dedicated to helping you get the
right people for the job.From a
business owner’s perspective, outsourcing is no longer the question, it is many
times the only affordable answer to staying competitive.

In this article,
I discussed how American businesses have had to adapt to the current economic
pressures prevalent today. American business has always used some out sourcing,
but today the advent of the internet has allowed out sourcing to reach new heights.
Companies like Fiverr.com and many others have taken advantage of the easy of
delivery that the internet provides. Businesses have taken advantage of these
low cost providers, especially for smaller and or simpler projects and it has
provided a new way to get things done. If you like this article please share it
with your friends. If you want to add to the conversation leave your thoughts in
the comment section.

If you like this article, you can find more by typing “outsourcing: or "LinkedIn" in the search box at the top left of this blog. If you found this article useful, share it with your friends, families and co-works. If you have a comment related to this article, leave it in the comment sections below. If you would like a free copy of our book, "Internet Marketing Tips for the 21st Century," fill out the form below.

Several years ago, a friend told me about
this great new network that was going to eliminate my need for going to network
meetings. He said he could go online and connect with people. I decided to join
that network to see what all the hoopla was all about. At the time my friend was
talking about LinkedIn. A year later I also joined Facebook and then followed that
up by joining Twitter. Later, I also joined FourSquare, Stumbleupon, YouTube, Ecademy,
MerchantCircle and Google+ (just to name a few). I soon learned that using social
networks was very different than most forms of online marketing. I quickly realized
that social networking was very much like face to face networking. Both were a form
of word of mouth marketing. Both had fairly ridged rules of how you could build
credibility, specific rules that would endear you to followers and rules that would
get you un-followed or un-friended very quickly.

Back then, I was determined to come
up with a set of social networking rules that would be considered unchanging. A
set of principles, if you will, that would guide a social networker through the
ever changing landscape of social media. In 2009, I had just published the first
edition of my book called "60 Seconds To success". This book was all about
the principles involved in face to face networking, also known as word of mouth
marketing. I had learned these principles over the last 30 years of my business
career. I learned many of these principles through experience by using them as a
member of various networking Groups. In particular I learned a lot as a BNI member
(for 20 years) and BNI director (6 years). I found that lots of people liked and
bought my book and felt it was very useful. I published the second and revised edition
in June of 2010 and again it was a big hit.

In 2010, I also had a big revelation.
I discovered that a lot of the principles that worked for me in Social networking
were the same principles that I had written about in my book in 2009. I set out
to see if all the principles I had learned in face to face networking would apply
to online social networking. I quickly discovered that there were many overlaps
with only subtle differences. I also discovered that these two different forms of
networking could complement each other. Since then I have compiled 12 rules,
(actually a baker’s dozen) that act as guidelines both in social networks and
face to face networking. This article explores these principles and lays them
out for you to learn and use. These 12 secrets will allow you to grow your
following and build your credibility. Doing so will increase sales and make
your social networking easier. So let's get started.

The 12 Secrets of
Social Media

1.No one joins a social network to be
advertised to.At the same time, they are giving up a lot of
personal information. This information is in turn used to target them with advertising
messages. To reach these prospects, provide targeted and useful information that fulfills their wants. Rarely post subtle commercials. Any commercial had better provide
useful benefits like discounts, coupons or free access to other useful material. Overt-selling is a fast way to get blocked and unfriended. They join to connect with friends, find interesting facts,
be entertained and to share information like documents, photos and videos.

2.Social networks are best utilized as a word
of mouth marketing medium. Testimonials and referrals are powerful and viral
in this medium for getting your message out. If you can get your customers to sing
your praises, you will do well. Every testimonial can be used many times. They can
be used in multiple networks and be introduced in multiple ways. Also once posted
in a testimonial album, they can become focal points where you can send prospects
who need reassurance. They can also be used in ads via pay per click. These ads
can be very powerful. This is especially true if you incorporate testimonials from
that specific social network in that network’s ad space.

3.Social Networking is Not Free! It takes a lot of time and effort to set up a social
network profile. Multiply this times the top five networks and you can see why you
could spend a significant amount of time getting set up.However, this is only the beginning. You now have
to provide useful, relevant and timely content to build your audience. Researching
this type of content takes time and posting it also takes time. In any endeavor
time equals money. This is why social media is used by so many start up businesses.
They have more time than they have money. However once you reach the stage that
you have revenue coming in (cash flow), it makes sense to outsource this because
it takes a lot of time and thus you would be losing money because this will take
away from production and sales.

4.Social Networks are not private. You also
give up a significant amount of your privacy. For some this is a heavy price, for
others it’s worth getting the infrastructure for networking without having to pay
a monthly subscription fee. Having said that, understand that social networks are
frequently perused by criminals fishing for unsuspecting victims to defraud them
or steal their identity. Make sure you never provide financial information, passwords
or too much information that could allow a criminal to guess your password. Purchase
Life Lock or other ID protection plan and be vigilant and suspicious of what people
are asking for.

5.Followers need your attention in two ways:The
ones you want to keep need one type of attention and those you want to get rid of
need another. Once you start having followers
you will need to manage them. Thanking, engaging followers and answering their questions
takes time. You will also have to manage who is following you. Removing undesirable
followers is a maintenance chore that must be done on a regular basis. You don't
have to follow everyone and you don't have to accept everyone who wants to follow
you. You will have to walk a fine line between being tolerant and selective.

6.Social Networks don’t grow on their own!
To build a large social network you will have to actively invite people to follow
you. Most people underestimate the time it takes to build a following of customers
and prospects. A network of a few hundred people is not that useful. To play a significant
role you need 1000 plus followers. This cannot be reached overnight. However, you
can easily reach 1000 followers by inviting 10 people a day and converting this
effort to 4 new followers each day. By the end of the year you will have over 1400
followers as fans.

7.Subscribing your company to the top five Social
Networks does not mean you’re using social networks! Having social network symbols
listed on your website is useless if you're not actively using these networks. Networking
means Net-Work, not Net-wait! Having
set up your social profiles and adding them to your website is only the beginning.
If you want to get a return, you will have to
put the effort into utilizing your networks. If you post useful content and have
either a highly targeted audience (like your customer base) or a very large audience
(say 10,000+ followers) you can use your network to launch products, and drive traffic
to produce sales.However, this is all predicated
on the premise that you have built up social equity, credibility and trust with
your followers; otherwise your posts will be ineffective. Think of the sales rule
of 10! For every 100 people you touch only 10 will be paying attention and of those
10, only one may be ready to act. If you are not working the network it is not going to do anything for you. Work
means posting useful content and engaging followers on a weekly if not daily basis.

8.Your audience will only follow you if you give
them want they want! Audiences follow people for many reasons. They might follow
you because you both share similar views. Another reason could be that you provide
useful and relevant information they want. A follower may find your content timely
and or entertaining or they may just follow you because you are famous in their
eyes. All of these reasons have one thing in common: It’s all about them, the follower
and not about you! Make them happy by providing them with the timely, useful, relevant
and entertaining content they crave on a consistent basis. Sometimes you have to
give, give, and give in order for followers to reciprocate!

9.Always strive to look professional and competent.
Make sure your posts are checked and double-checked for grammar and spelling errors.
Grammar and spelling mistakes never make you look good. Always give credit where
credit is due. Never take credit for something you did not create. Understand your
audience and provide posts at their education level. Don't try and be cool, fancy
or smart by using big words, unless your audience is a bunch of PhD's. Minimize
tech speak and acronyms if at all possible. Try and write on a fifth grade level
whenever possible.

10.Use “leverage” to magnify your message and to
produce buzz and viral distribution. Whenever possible, post to as many social
networks simultaneously as you can. Be aware that some networks require a different
format or have different limitations. A post written for Facebook can be very different
than a Tweet! Use aggregation tools like Hootsuite, Hootlet, Tweet Deck and others
to schedule and post to your networks. Use information gathering services like Google
Alerts, PaperLi and others newsgathering services to have content brought to you.
Gather and organize your posts in advance then schedule your posts with the aggregation
software of your choice.

11.Thank all followers whenever it’s appropriate.
This includes new followers, mentions,
retweets, shares, forwards, likes, comments and even questions. We all have he ard
Grandma’s rules of social etiquette. Rules like: Be nice to nice people. Be courteous,
say please and thank you, help others, etc. If you want people to follow you, be
nice to them. A simple thank you carries more weight than you realize. However,
don't patronize people, it makes them mad and it's disingenuous.

12.Helping others get started can be a way of helping
you grow your network.As a matter of
fact, helping others in general will help you grow your social networks. Helping
new subscribers connect with others builds social equity. The more help you provide,
the more value you create, the more social equity you will generate. Go through
the trouble of pointing out help files and network tutorials. Show followers a few
of the useful tools the network has and of course, add them to your network. Then ask them to connect you to their friends.

13.Ask and you will receive. If you want people
to share your information, retweet your tweets and comment on your latest post,
ask them to! If you want to engage people,
be engaging, ask open questions, complement their achievements, praise their good
fortune and don't forget to "like", share and retweet their post as well.
Don’t be pushy! Like begets like, if you don’t ask you won't receive!

Since I began using social networking
in 2004, I have looked for universal rules that govern all networks. In my 30+ years
of business I have engaged in face to face networking and found many principles
that have not changed in all that time. Online social networking follows many of
these same rules. I have written extensively about word of mouth marketing and have
been writing about social networking since 2009. The fact of the matter is that
social networking is word of mouth marketing gone electronic.This makes it faster, viral and much more pervasive.
It is also more powerful as your message can be spread faster and farther than face
to face could ever do. However, these two word of mouth venues are not mutually
exclusive. They actually complement each other. Face-to-Face networks allow you
to build trust and credibility faster. In turn you can use this trust to create
testimonials and referrals that can spread around the world much faster than they
could with face to face networking alone. In this article I have discussed over
a dozen universal principles of social networking. Use these principles to grow
your prospect contact sphere, expand your client base and spread your positive message
around the world. Used correctly nothing can outperform word of mouth marketing
ability to ease the sales closing process. Use these principles wisely and make
this your best year yet.If you liked this article pass it along
to your friends. If you have a comment or other ideas leave
them in the comment section. If you want to contact me, my contact information is
listed below and on this blog.

That's my opinion; I look forward towards reading yours. If you like this article, you can find more by typing “social media" in the search box at the top left of this blog. If you found this article useful, share it with your friends, families and co-works. If you have a comment related to this article, leave it in the comment sections below. If you would like a free copy of our book, "Internet Marketing Tips for the 21st Century," fill out the form below.

Hector Cisneros is COO and director of Social Media
Marketing at Working the Web
to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville,
Florida.He is also co-host of the
weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web To Win"
on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a
syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success.”

As a kid, I remember the ads
in the backs of magazines showing cool gadgets and seemingly magical devices. I
remember the ad for X-ray Glasses, Space Helmets, hand held communications and
other futuristic promises that were yet to come. Jump 50 years forward and we
have space helmets, smartphones and Google Glasses. I know, they are not X-rays
Glasses but they have stirred a hornets nest of controversy even though they
can see through your clothes.

There has never before been
such controversy over a technology that has yet to reach store shelves.This wearable computing device is going to
take technology to a whole new level… literally.The device itself sports nothing radically
new.All the devices and operations
performed by Glass are available on any Smartphone or tablet PC.Voice actuated, record video, take pictures,
run apps etc… What seems to be causing all the anger is the fact that Google Glass
is a camera/video platform that can start snapping pictures and make video
recordings without being noticed.This
has caused a number of institutions to ban their use and has spawned a number
of legislators to consider legislation to limit when and where people can use
Glass.

No Glass Allowed

Most movie theaters already forbid
customers from bringing in audio or video recording devices, but the more
subtle Google Glass could add another wrinkle to those policies. Lawmakers in
West Virginia have attempted to make it illegal to drive wearing the connected
eyewear, while casinos that normally prohibit recording devices are also likely
to enact rules for wearing the glasses in sensitive gaming areas.http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/google-glass-nato-theater-ban-1200479394/

In
a blog on idigitaltimes called, “5 Places Your Futuristic Eyewear is Not
Welcome”: Dave Meinert, who runs
the 5 Point Café in Seattle, said that Google Glass users would have to take
off their high tech eyewear if they want to enter. He has put up a sign that
reads: "Respect our customers' privacy as we'd expect them to respect
yours."

Parks departments across
the country are just itching for the chance to call a ban on Google Glass,
according to the Daily Mail. "This is the ultimate snooper's gizmo. If you
walk around with a video camera filming, it's obvious what you're doing, but
with Google Glass, it's much, much more invasive," Dan Tench, of legal
firm Olswang, told the Daily Mail.

Whether any of these
prohibitions are even constitutional will need to stand the test of time.What is certain is that with only 2,000 pairs
of Google Glasses roaming the planet at present, this is only the tip of the
techno-hysteria iceberg.What will
happen once glass reaches store shelves is anybody’s guess.Of course, whether the device will be adopted
by the general public at all is still uncertain,

The Geek Factor

Already detractors have been
pointing out everything from the obvious loss of style points that Glass
wearers will need to deal with two skits on Saturday Night Live that make Glass
users seem like the ultimate geeks.And
while there have been other notable tech concepts that have bombed big time in
the past, such as Apple’s Newton, it will be interesting to see whether the
urge to be a Borg will outweigh the giggle factor in the long run.

Will Glass Suffer Newton's Fate?

If you will recall, Apple Computer
introduced the Newton in 1993 as one of the first personal digital assistants
in existence.This was in the days
before Smartphones or tablet PC’s were invented.Still the device’s resemblance to earlier
technology cannot be denied. Equipped with a pen-stylus that enabled users to
draw or write notes on the device that would be automatically be translated
into text, Newton came equipped with a limited number of applications designed
to untether a computer user from their PC.While clearly ahead of its time, the Newton was considered a failure and
was dropped in 1998.

Two Apple mobile devices based on ARM processors. 162MHz on the Newton, 412MHz on the iPhone. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So is it possible that Glass
could suffer the same fate?Unlike
Newton, Glass can do much more than read and write.Google has been already wooing app developers
as well as predicting that the wearable-computer market could be as big as $6
billion by 2016.Like Smartphones, which
were considered a niche product for the first few years after their
introduction, time will tell whether Glass or any imitators that arise in the
next couple of years can overcome the stigma of sporting these all-too-obvious
devices, as well as the high cost of ownership. If you like this article, you can find more by typing “Google glass” or "Google" in the search box at the top left of this blog. If you found this article useful, share it with your friends, families and co-works. If you have a comment related to this article, leave it in the comment sections below. If you would like a free copy of our book, "Internet Marketing Tips for the 21st Century," fill out the form below.

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By Hector Cisneros I have been actively networking in a number of organizations since the early 1980’s. My experience, tells me that most...

Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy - Your privacy is important to us. We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We only have access to information you voluntarily give us via email or other direct contacts from you. We will not sell or rent this information to anyone. We will use your information to respond to you, regarding the reason you contacted us. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary to fulfill your request. Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email in the future to tell you about our FREE eBooks, new services, specials, or changes to this privacy policy. If you to unsubscribe from our newsletter or remove access to our FREE eBooks, you can unsubscribe when you receive our newsletters, email me at, hectorc@workingthewebtowin.com with the heading Unscribe from Newsletter and Free eBooks, listing your the email address you subscribed with. you can also text me at 904-712-9355 with the same information or send us a letter to unsubscribe at Working the Web to Win, 3740 Beach Blvd. #300 Jacksonville Fl. 32207. Again please make sure you tell us the email address you subscribed with.